Chapter 6

After Amanda's last text telling Olivier she wouldn't see him, she didn't hear from him again.

Day after day rolled by, and he didn't send her emails or texts.

He wanted her to miss him and to give in to what he wanted.

He was hoping she'd change her mind.

He wanted her to be his mistress, but she was just as determined not to be.

She couldn't make her peace with it.

She thought about it constantly but it was against her morals and everything she believed in.

She missed hearing from him and seeing him.

Her life felt empty without him now.

It annoyed her that she was already so hooked on him, and she hadn't even slept with him.

She felt him in every fiber of her being, and his absence was a physical pain somewhere between her stomach and her heart.

She tried to keep busy at work, but he crept into her thoughts, night and day.

After the first week, Tom Quinlan showed up at the gallery at lunchtime and invited Amanda to join him at a nearby restaurant.

She was going to turn him down, but he looked so forlorn that she went with him in the end.

She hadn't been eating lunch recently and Pascal could see that she had lost weight.

She was still very pale and hadn't been wearing makeup to work.

She was in mourning for Olivier, but she stuck to her guns and didn't call or text him, and he was staying away too.

Their miraculous affair was over, and she just had to get used to it.

There was no other way.

Amanda had a nice enough time with Tom over lunch, but it wasn't the same as Olivier.

They had less to talk about with a twenty-year void behind them, and Tom had no relationship to her world, nor she to his.

She was willing to be friends during his sabbatical in Paris, but she wasn't attracted to him.

When he pressed her, she tried to express it as gently but clearly as she could.

He interrogated her again about Olivier during lunch.

"So is the guy in the suit with the dark blue tie at the opening your boyfriend?"

he asked her.

"No, he's not,"

she said, with an edge to her voice.

"He's a friend, but I'm not seeing him right now."

She didn't tell Tom it was over, to avoid giving him the impression that she was available to him.

"Why not?"

Tom looked surprised.

"We have a difference of opinion about something I think is important.

What about you? Have you met any nice women?"

"Not really.

There's one in my building.

But she doesn't speak English so all we do is smile and say ‘Bonjour.'?"

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing,"

she said.

"Fewer disagreements."

He laughed.

"I'm sorry you had a falling-out with your friend.

He seems like a nice guy.

And he's crazy about you."

Tom had watched Olivier closely whenever Amanda was around.

Pascal had noticed Tom watching her keenly and intensely.

But Tom seemed more relaxed with her at lunch, and less intense.

He gave her the impression that he had finally gotten the message that she was not going to rekindle their romance, twenty years later.

"How's the book coming?"

she asked him, wanting to change the subject away from Olivier, which was a sensitive topic for her right now, even more so since she wasn't hearing from him.

He had vanished as soon as they returned from London.

He was gone, presumably for good, which was what she had said she wanted, but it hurt anyway.

She wasn't trying to force his hand to get divorced and marry her.

They didn't know each other that well.

She just didn't want to be his mistress, which was the only position he had open.

Amanda had too much pride and was too ethical for that.

The days were long and hard, and the nights were sleepless.

Tom walked her back to the gallery after lunch.

He hung around with nothing to do, and clearly wasn't working too hard on his book.

He was still visiting museums and tourist attractions, which made Amanda wonder if he was serious about writing, but he said he was.

She really didn't know him anymore, after twenty years.

—

When she got back to the gallery after lunch with Tom, Pascal was in a full-blown argument with one of their artists, an American who called himself Johnny Vegas.

They had been having trouble with him for a while.

He had a drinking problem, and had previously been on drugs.

Pascal was sure he was using substances again, and he was two months late delivering two paintings he owed them.

The artist was shouting obscenities at Pascal when Amanda arrived.

She was wondering if she should call the police, but Pascal insisted he could handle it himself.

Johnny Vegas took a swing at Pascal and missed him, and Pascal finally lost his temper, told him he was fired, and said they would no longer represent him.

Pascal physically pushed the artist out of the gallery and locked the door.

The artist pounded on the glass door until Amanda thought he would break it, and then staggered away and disappeared around the corner.

"He needs to go back to rehab,"

Pascal said, smoothing his shirt down.

"His girlfriend left him and he's going crazy.

He's talented but we can't afford to represent him."

His last gallery had fired him too.

Amanda hated to see it end badly, but there was nothing else they could do.

—

It was a full ten days after their return from London when Olivier walked into the gallery at the end of the day, looking uncomfortable.

He wasn't sure what Amanda's reaction would be, but he wanted to see her.

And Pascal noticed that he looked as sick and worn out as she did.

Olivier was carrying an armload of flowers, and Amanda walked right into him when she stepped out of her office.

"What are you doing here?"

she said in a low voice.

"I came to see you,"

he said, handing her the flowers.

She walked them over to her assistant, handed them to her, and asked her to find a vase.

There were at least two dozen red roses mixed in with lilacs and lavender hydrangea.

They were beautiful, and Margo scurried off with them to find a vase big enough to hold them.

Amanda let Olivier follow her into her office against her better judgment.

Her heart had taken a leap when she first saw him, and she could still feel it pounding when they both sat down with her desk between them.

She didn't want to hear anything he had to say, seeing him was hard enough.

She had thought she would never see or hear from him again.

"I've been going crazy, thinking about you,"

he said.

She looked at him and didn't respond.

What could she say? He knew her position, and his situation was clear to her now and wasn't going to change.

"Why don't we see how things work out with us for a year? And if we're still in love a year from now, I'll get a divorce.

That would give me time to move some money around so I don't get slaughtered.

How would you feel about that?"

It was a major step for him to get divorced in a year, but she doubted he'd ever do it.

She assumed that his wife, his children, or his wife's family would lean on him heavily, and he would wind up telling Amanda he couldn't get divorced after all.

But his offer was a major concession for him.

He wanted to find a way to make it work that she'd agree to.

He didn't want to lose her, and Amanda didn't want to lose herself.

She had already lost him, as soon as he told her he was married.

"Can't you give us a chance, Amanda? I've never known another woman like you."

She was straightforward and loving and honest and trustworthy.

She was everything his wife wasn't.

"I don't want to lose you.

Will you at least have dinner with me so we can talk about it?"

He looked desperate, and she didn't want him to leave either.

"It won't get you anywhere,"

she warned him, and went to get her coat and put it on.

They went to L'Avenue, which was familiar and easy, and sat on the terrace, discussing the situation.

They went around in circles and came out in the same place every time.

By the end of dinner, they were both too tired to argue about it anymore, and he could see that he wasn't going to convince her that his being married was acceptable to her.

They left the restaurant after he paid, and walked a few blocks.

The evening air was warmer than it had been, and it was nice to be out with him again.

She had missed him fiercely for the past ten days, ever since he had dropped the bomb of his marriage on her in London.

She started to call an Uber and he stopped her.

"I'll take you home."

He had left his car with the valet and when he brought it to them, Amanda slipped in next to Olivier and looked at him.

Their glamorous perfect courtship had disintegrated and had become a life-and-death battle over a crucial issue: whether or not dating a married man was okay.

To her, it wasn't.

But he had waited to tell her, so that she had fallen for him by the time he did.

They hadn't been together for long, but long enough for her to get attached to him, and she already had dreams of the future when he told her.

She didn't want to give those dreams up.

But dating a married man, and being in love with him, would be an enormous challenge if she moved forward with him, and a potential heartbreak in the future for her if he never left his wife.

Olivier claimed that his wife wouldn't care, but Amanda found that hard to believe.

He was interesting, intelligent, successful, kind, and handsome.

She couldn't imagine any woman being willing to give him up.

And it all mattered to her.

She also didn't want to break up a marriage, but he swore that his marriage had been dead for years.

It was painful for Amanda to think of giving him up, even now.

For the past month, they had seemed like a perfect match.

He drove her home, as she mulled over what they'd said during dinner, and when they got to her building, he pulled over and couldn't stop himself.

He took her gently in his arms and kissed her, not sure how she'd react.

But her passion was as powerful as his.

He couldn't stop kissing her and she didn't want him to.

They were breathless when they stopped.

"What are we going to do?"

he whispered to her.

"I don't know."

She didn't have the power to resist him, and no matter how free and available he said he was, he was still married, and it mattered to her.

She believed in the sanctity of marriage, and she didn't want to hurt anyone else as she'd been hurt before.

They sat in the car kissing for a long time.

She had missed him so acutely for the past ten days that she didn't want to leave him now.

He suggested they go for a walk, just to be with her a little longer.

They both got out of the car and ambled slowly down the street, his arm around her.

He stopped to kiss her under a streetlamp, and she felt the magic of his touch as she stood in the circle of his arms, and when they stopped, she had an odd feeling that someone was watching them.

She stiffened and he looked at her, concerned.

He thought she was thinking of his being married again, but she had an odd, distracted look as she glanced over her shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

he asked her gently.

"Nothing.

I'm just being paranoid."

"About what?"

He was instantly alert and protective.

"We had to fire one of our artists a few days ago.

He's been on drugs before, and we think he is again.

He's an alcoholic and he's been on and off heroin for years.

He's late with everything.

We've given him a million chances, but we had to sever our representation of him.

He took a swing at Pascal and threatened to get even with us.

I just got a weird feeling that someone was watching us.

I'm sure it was my imagination and has nothing to do with him."

She had a horrifying feeling then that it was Olivier's wife.

Or maybe just her imagination.

She already felt guilty.

"You need to be careful, Amanda,"

Olivier warned her, and pulled her closer to him as they walked back to her building and picked up the pace.

And when they got to the front door of her building, Olivier kissed her again.

"I wasn't going to do that tonight,"

she said to him with a small smile.

"You have a way of transporting me.

I forget everything when I'm with you.

All reason.

The problem isn't solved, you know."

"I know it's not, but it's not insurmountable either if you give us some time.

I suppose I could move out, and only stay at the house when the kids come home.

They know their mother and I don't get along.

They've never known it any other way.

Our problems started before they were born."

It still seemed to Amanda like an ugly way to live.

It reminded her of her parents' fights and the unbridgeable chasm between them before they finally gave up and filed for divorce, and she and her mother had moved to New York.

It was a sad time, but it was better than all the tension they had lived with before the divorce.

And it was all because of her father's infidelities, which was another reason why she felt so strongly about married men having extramarital affairs.

She was a staunch believer in fidelity, married or not.

Olivier waited at the door while she used the code to unlock the outer door to her building and got out her key for the apartment door upstairs.

"Can I see you tomorrow?"

Olivier whispered to her, and she wanted to resist him, but she couldn't, and as they stood there, a car suddenly pulled out of a parking space not far from where they stood and peeled away with tires squealing.

She was sure the driver had been watching them, but he disappeared too quickly for her to get a good view.

"Was it your drugged-out artist?"

he asked her.

"I couldn't tell."

"He wouldn't come to your home, would he?"

"In theory, I think he'd more likely break a window at the gallery, but who knows what he's capable of.

Someone may have given him my address without my knowing."

"I don't like this,"

Olivier said, frowning.

"Should you hire a guard?"

"We've never had a problem before.

I don't know what you do in a case like this.

I think he's too mentally disordered to do any real harm, but you never know.

He'll probably calm down in a few days.

I think getting fired was a real shock to him.

We were going to give him a show in the fall, but we couldn't anyway.

He was way behind on his paintings."

"Art is a dangerous business,"

Olivier said, teasing her.

"So is love,"

Amanda whispered back.

But so was life.

There were risks around every corner.

You never knew what could happen.

She managed to tear herself away from him and slip into the building after Olivier kissed her again.

She went upstairs to her apartment where Lulu was waiting.

She barked and wagged her tail at Amanda, dancing in little circles on her hind legs.

She was happy Amanda was home.

She got a text from Olivier as soon as she took her coat off, and then two more.

They told her how much he loved her and how grateful he was to see her and spend the evening with her.

She could tell that he was treading gently with her, afraid to scare her off.

She went to brush her teeth and was putting on her nightgown when the phone rang.

She was sure it was going to be Olivier again, with one last thing to tell her.

She didn't look at the caller ID and smiled when she answered.

"You can't miss me already,"

she said when she picked it up, but there was no voice on the other end.

She could hear breathing, but the caller didn't speak.

He just held the phone and breathed, and the caller ID said it was a blocked number when she looked.

She thought either it was the fired artist, Johnny Vegas, though he never identified himself, or it was a prank of some kind.

She had three more calls from a blocked number that night and didn't answer them.

They woke her up each time.

She reported it to Pascal at the gallery the next day.

Amanda wanted to call the police, but Pascal pointed out that they had nothing to report since all the calls were from a blocked number.

She was beginning to think it really was Johnny Vegas, who had sworn revenge on them for firing him.

The breathing call had been tame, and no threats were made.

So, there wasn't much to say to the police if she called them.

It was a busy week after that.

She didn't see Olivier the next day, or she would have mentioned the calls.

She was still trying to decide what to do about him.

She felt herself sliding inexorably toward him, and wondered if she should just accept the situation as he described, and see if his wife was as unengaged as he claimed.

It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was one option she had that didn't entail losing him immediately.

She didn't want to give him up yet.

—

She was tidying some things in one of her closets on Saturday, when the doorbell rang.

It took her a minute to put down some items she was holding, and when she went to the door no one was there.

She looked down and saw a long white florist's box, the kind that held long-stemmed roses, and she smiled.

She guessed immediately that the flowers were from Olivier.

He was still courting her, hoping to overcome her concerns.

She bent down to pick up the box, and it was surprisingly heavy.

She juggled it awkwardly, as she stepped back into her apartment, and lost her grip on it from the excessive weight of the box.

It burst open, and a long gutted fish the length of the box dropped onto her entrance floor and the carpet, its bloody entrails spilling everywhere, as a foul odor of dead fish filled the hall.

She jumped back as it splashed on her, and started to cry when she saw it.

She couldn't imagine who would do something like that, and she instantly thought of Johnny Vegas again.

She went to her bathroom, pulled off her nightgown, covered in fish guts and blood, and stood under the shower to get the smell off her.

She called Pascal and told him what had happened.

He was at the gallery.

She had been planning to join him there and he told her not to come in.

"The guy's a lunatic.

It's just the kind of thing he would do.

I'm glad we fired him.

Can you get someone to help you clean up the mess? I don't want to close the gallery to come over in case he shows up to do some mischief here."

"I can handle it,"

she said, revolted at the thought of the gutted fish.

The phone rang as soon as she hung up with Pascal.

It was Olivier, and he could hear the panic in her voice.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes, no…I…"

She told him what had happened and burst into tears at the end of it.

"I'll be right there.

I'll bring some cleaning equipment.

Don't touch it.

I'll deal with it when I get there."

He was there in less than ten minutes, wearing rubber gardening boots, with utility gloves, some scoops, and powerful industrial chemicals to clean the carpet and the floor.

She helped him as best she could, and half an hour later, they had cleaned up the mess and disposed of the fish in the rubbish bins downstairs.

Amanda was still looking shaken, but Olivier had done all the nasty work.

"Do you think it was your disgruntled artist?"

he questioned her.

"I can't think of anyone else who would do a crazy thing like that."

It had been disgusting.

Olivier had taken photographs with his phone in case she wanted to report it to the police, but there was no way to know who had done it, and there were no surveillance cameras in her building.

The guardian didn't work on Saturdays, so no one could have seen the culprit, and someone had obviously let him into the building without being buzzed in.

She guessed that he must have waited until someone went out, and slipped in.

The florist box looked harmless enough, so no one had stopped him.

When they had finished cleaning up, thrown all the debris away, and scrubbed themselves thoroughly, Olivier looked at Amanda with tender concern.

"Let's go for a drive. You need to get out of here."

She was deathly pale again, as she had been the night Olivier told her he was married.

She had had a traumatic couple of weeks, and he felt guilty for his part in it.

She didn't deserve this.

She was a good person, and he could see that she was frightened as she went to put on clean jeans and a sweater for a ride to anywhere, just to get out of the house for a little while.

He was glad he had called her and so was she.

She wouldn't have bothered him otherwise, and she had no idea how she would have cleaned up the gory mess herself, the fish was so big and heavy.

Olivier guessed it weighed twenty pounds.

They left Lulu in the kitchen where they had put her so she didn't get into the area that had been cleaned, and twenty minutes later, they were on the highway, heading toward Normandy.

Amanda started to relax slowly as they drove along, and the suburbs soon turned to countryside with farms and cottages and farm animals grazing.

She could feel the tension go out of her body, as they drove and spoke from time to time.

It was peaceful being there with him, and the ugly incident from the morning faded slowly from their minds, as the bucolic countryside took over.

They stopped for lunch at a country inn Olivier knew, and he had her laughing by the end of the meal, but then she grew serious again.

"Tell me about your sons.

You've never told me anything about them."

Now that they were no longer a secret, she wanted to know about them, and their relationship with him.

"We were very close when they were growing up.

Less so now, since they live far away, especially Guillaume in Argentina.

He loves it, unfortunately.

I don't think he'll ever come back to live in France again.

And now he's seriously involved with a woman there."

Olivier spoke in a nostalgic tone about both boys, and she could tell he was a dedicated father.

"My younger son, Edouard, is more like me.

He's gregarious and loves to have fun.

He was a ski-racing champion in his teens.

He's the one who lives in Switzerland.

He's still young, and Geneva is quite near.

I go skiing with him when I can get away.

I'm no match for him anymore.

He goes like the wind.

And I don't want to break anything."

Olivier was only forty-seven and she could tell he was in good condition.

"Do you ski?"

he asked her.

"Only if I have to."

She smiled.

"I don't want to break anything either, and I've never been a great skier.

My real talent is après-ski.

Velvet stretch pants, Cristal champagne, a little caviar.

Put me by the fire and I'm all set."

"Actually, that sounds very appealing,"

he commented, and glanced at her with a smile.

They headed back to the city after lunch and went to her apartment.

He was going to collect his cleaning materials and wanted to check the smell in the apartment.

They had left the windows open, and it was completely gone.

Only the damp spot on the hall carpet with a faint chemical odor remained.

He had done an impeccable job.

"I used to fish as a boy, and I always made a mess.

My mother made me clean it up, so I have a bit of experience.

That was a hell of a nasty fish they gave you,"

he said, admiring her apartment.

He hadn't had time to look around thoroughly before.

She had a collection of eclectic objects from her travels, which fascinated him.

Masks and fossils, and handcrafted boxes, some sculptures from Africa, and two splendid white beaded chairs from Nigeria that looked like thrones.

"You have some wonderful things, Amanda,"

he said admiringly.

"Too many,"

she said, pointing at a bookcase full of beautiful objects, with some delicate blown glass from Italy.

"I love finding odd things to bring home when I travel."

"Do you travel a lot?"

He was still getting to know her and loved everything he saw and heard.

"Not anymore.

Only to find new artists now, or to visit the ones we have.

I used to spend a lot of time in Africa and India when I was younger.

I've done that, I don't need to go back anymore.

It's not easy travel, and some of the areas I loved are politically dangerous now.

The world has changed."

"I wish I had done more of that when I was younger,"

he said.

"I was tied down with the boys.

My wife was always at a horse show somewhere.

She tried to get me into it in the beginning, but I've never liked horses.

They're just big dumb animals to me, which is sacrilege to her.

She goes to all the shows with her women friends now.

A lot of women like riding and all the equestrian events.

The people involved in it are a special breed.

And they all know each other.

I liked hunting and fishing when I was younger.

Now I hunt for talented young writers, like you with your artists."

"Do you ever think of writing yourself?"

He smiled when she asked him, over a glass of wine as they sat on the couch in her elegant living room.

He liked the way she decorated, and the way she mixed different styles of art.

"I've actually written two very boring nonfiction books, about the psychology of the creative arts and the different ways it's expressed.

I used to dream of writing a novel, but I don't think I have the talent or the imagination for it."

"I'll bet you could write one if you tried,"

she said, and he smiled.

It was peaceful being with her.

Lulu was curled up on her lap sound asleep, and the drive in the country had relaxed them both.

Olivier had talked to Amanda about his parents that afternoon.

They had been typical, boring, snobbish aristocrats, according to him.

He had a brother who had died in a car accident at eighteen, and his parents were gone now too.

He had no family except his wife and his two sons.

She wondered if that was part of why he hadn't divorced.

He had been educated in France and Switzerland.

He described it as a very predictable life ruled by tradition.

Amanda was much more adventuresome than he was.

"I've always wanted to go to Wyoming, ever since I was a boy."

"It's very beautiful, the mountains there are very mysterious.

I went to a dude ranch with my mother once.

It was a lot of fun.

I wish I had done more with her.

We never know how short or long we will have people for, and I was a rebellious teenager in the two years we had alone."

Night fell as they were talking, exchanging poignant memories of the past, and the kind of things you don't say at a dinner party, and only to close friends.

Amanda was surprised by how late it had gotten while they talked.

It was after eight o'clock, and she was about to suggest cooking dinner for him, when he leaned over and kissed her, and all the confidences they had shared ignited a passion that nothing could hold back.

They were both desperate as they found their way to her bedroom and consummated the desire they had felt for each other since they reconnected, two months after they first met.

And now he was forbidden fruit since she knew he was married, which made their lovemaking even more exquisite since the love they shared was fragile now and only borrowed.

They lay breathless on her bed afterward.

It had been an incredible blending of bodies and souls.

"Wow!"

Olivier said, as he rolled onto his side to look at her and drifted a fingertip down her perfect body.

"You are an extraordinary woman, Amanda Delanoe."

He leaned down to kiss her.

"Why did we wait so long?"

"I'm glad we did."

They knew each other now, and what they were getting into, and despite her misgivings about his marital status, she had no regrets.

She had cast her lot with his now.

She knew his situation and she was leery of it and didn't like it, but she was in love with him.

She had no idea where fate would take them next, but she had signed on for the journey now, with her eyes and heart wide open.

He kissed her then, and made love to her again.

The second time was even better than the first.